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Del Toro Says 'Prometheus' May Have Killed 'Mountains of Madness'

by Ethan Anderton
May 7, 2012
Source: Shock Til You Drop

It's been a rough few years for Guillermo del Toro as a filmmaker. Not only was he unable to follow through as director of The Hobbit (though his work will surely still be seen in some form of Peter Jackson's take on the adaptation), but Universal killed his passion project of an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, a film he's been trying to get made for about a decade. Thankfully, Pacific Rim is on the way with plenty of monster mayhem and action. And while there were hopes his Lovecraft adaptation would find life again later, del Toro seems to think another sci-fi film has beat him to the punch. Read on!

Surely we're all excited to see Ridley Scott's return to sci-fi this summer with Prometheus, but it sounds like the promising film may have effectively killed del Toro's adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness. Over at the Del Toro Films message boards (via Shock Til You Drop), the director wanted to drop his two cents on the defunct project, and talked about how Prometheus just might mean we may never see del Toro's take on At the Mountains of the Madness on the big screen:

"I have been interviewed about this lately and wanted to post my two cents about this:

Prometheus started filming a while ago - right at the time we were in preproduction on 'Pacific Rim'. The title itself gave me pause - knowing that 'Alien' was heavily influenced by Lovecraft and his novella.

This time, decades later with the budget and place Ridley Scott occupied, I assumed the Greek metaphor alluded at the creation aspects of the HPL book. I believe I am right and if so, as a fan, I am delighted to see a new [Ridley Scott] science fiction film, but this will probably mark a long pause - if not the demise - of ['At the Mountains of Madness'].

The sad part is - I have been pursuing ['At the Mountains of Madness'] for over a decade now - and, well, after 'Hellboy II' two projects I dearly loved were not brought to fruition for me.

The good part is: One project did... And I am loving it and grateful for the blessings I have received."

Though he wouldn't mention specifics, when pressed for a few more details, del Toro said that compared to what he's seen from Prometheus (which is likely more than what we've seen) that his film has the "Same premise. Scenes that would be almost identical." But perhaps bigger than that is, "Both movies seem to share identical set pieces and the exact same big revelation (twist) at the end. I won't spoil it." So there you have it. In a way, it sounds like del Toro's vision for the adaptation has made it to the big screen in some form, but the director sounds like he's more than a little disappointed that he can't bring his vision for At the Mountains of Madness to the big screen anytime soon. Either way, we're still excited for Pacific Rim and anything else del Toro wants to throw our way. Thoughts?

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